New bread and fuel protests in Sudan

Protestors demonstrated against high bread and fuel prices in El Gezira and North Darfur yesterday.

Members of Resistance Committees from Wad Madani, capital of El Gezira, organised a demonstration, and a protest vigil in front of the state government offices.

They carried banners calling for the restructuring of the Forces for Freedom and Change in El Gezira, the dismissal of employees affiliated to the former regime, a system of quotas in the civil service, and a mechanism to control market prices.

The demonstrators condemned the failure of the governor to provide sufficient bread, fuel, gas and sugar for the state, and called for an investigation into the supply of basic goods to El Gezira.

In El Fasher, capital of North Darfur, Governor Mohamed Arabi told people protesting against the soaring prices, power outages, and the shortages of bread, fuel, and cooking gas, that “this is the situation in the whole of Sudan, including the capital Khartoum”.

He attributed the high prices of basic commodities in North Darfur to the high costs of transport. The price of a (100kg) sack of flour is SDG550* in Khartoum, SDG960 in El Fasher, and even higher in other localities of North Darfur.

Arabi said that the power cuts in North Darfur are the result of not being connected to the national grid. Connecting North Darfur to the national electricity grid will cost $250 million, he said. A better provision of electricity will also mean a better provision of drinking water.

Recently, bread protests broke out in Khartoum and Port Sudan as well.

* USD 1 = SDG 55.1375 at the time of publishing this article. As effective foreign exchange rates can vary in Sudan, Radio Dabanga bases all SDG currency conversions on the daily middle US Dollar rate quoted by the Central Bank of Sudan (CBoS). At the parallel market in Khartoum, the greenback is selling for around SDG250 (a record height of SDG260 was reported on September 10).

Radio Dabanga’s editorial independence means that we can continue to provide factual updates about political developments to Sudanese and international actors, educate people about how to avoid outbreaks of infectious diseases, and provide a window to the world for those in all corners of Sudan. Support Radio Dabanga for as little as €2.50, the equivalent of a cup of coffee.